a first kiss, a conversation using smoke and mirrors, and a promise
He was eleven the first time he wanted to kiss her.
They were playing Sharks Have Teeth on the curb—their co-invented card game they'd been playing since they were seven—and something about the way the setting sun hit her face made him itch to touch her. It was his turn to place a card, but instead he was staring at her, at her rosy cheeks and her large eyes and, most ardently, her slightly parted lips. He'd never before felt like he did then—like somehow his skin was buzzing with a need for something he didn't yet understand. And he was still young, right on the border between Girls are Gross and Awkward Handholding, so it was easy to explain to his naïve mind that he'd just eaten too much sugar that day. But he knew himself and he knew his mind, and he knew that he wanted what he wanted, and what he wanted was to kiss her. He imagined for a moment what it might feel like, and whether or not she'd want him to or not, and what he might do if it turned out that she did. She stared right back at him, her delicate eyebrows drawing down in slight confusion as her head turned just barely to the right, her gaze calculating. He knew exactly how much distance was between their lips and he converted it to every unit of measurement he could think of as he tried to work up the nerve to lean forward, but when she abruptly turned her face to look at the street, he knew the distance was far too long.
He was just a boy, anyway. He poked at his dinner halfheartedly that night and tried to read some before bed, but he couldn't forget the curve of her bottom lip. And he was worse for it.
It took him three years to work up the courage to do it, but when he finally did, he found he'd waited a little too long.
They were in his room, watching some mildly disturbing show on Animal Planet, and all he could think about was the fact that she was prettier and prettier each day that he saw her.
He knew she was aware that he adored her. Everyone knew he did. Tara had been colder and colder towards her for it and his older brother teased him relentlessly, but he didn't care, because why should he be ashamed for loving her? It seemed silly to him for anyone to be ashamed of the things they liked or loved. Frankly, in his mind, anyone who didn't love her should be ashamed. He'd been her friend for a very long time so he knew all her faults. He was well aware of the fact that she could be vain and standoffish at times, as well as quite violent under certain circumstances and generally bossy. He knew what her hair looked like when she went two days without washing it and precisely what she looked like underneath the modest layer of makeup she wore every day. And he fancied her all the more for it.
So when she turned towards him to ask him some comfortable question or another, he reached up, his hands cradling her face gently. The gesture felt new and strange and thrilling and wonderful all at once—and she stared, her eyes wide and her cheeks pinking just slightly underneath his tender gaze.
"What?" She asked him a little self-consciously, her voice softer than normal. He'd never seen her like that before. Through her unease came a quiet beauty that even his fourteen-year-old self could appreciate.
"You're beautiful, Clara." He told her. It was the first time he'd ever said the words even though he'd thought them for a very long time. Her eyebrows rose sharply in surprise at that. She seemed to lean further into his hands, maybe not even noticing herself that she had.
"Oh." She said.
He grinned and grinned because he thought she was brilliant. She reached up timidly and set her hands over his, her thumbs rubbing gently against the backs of his hands. The contact made his stomach jolt.
"So kiss me." She said boldly, her softness edging away.
He felt his heart jump at those three little words, like they were the biggest thing he'd ever heard.
"K-Kiss you?" He stammered, shying away slightly as if he hadn't spent practically every day of the past three years thinking of doing just that.
Her thumbs kept stroking his hands, and even though his palms were growing sweaty, he didn't drop them from her face. He felt to do that would shatter something between them.
"Yeah." She replied simply. "I want to kiss you, but I haven't kissed anyone before, and I don't want to get it wrong. So maybe you can do it first, and I'll pay very close attention, so next time I can do it right."
The casual delivery of her words befuddled him more than anything else, because she said all of this like it was no big deal at all, when just the knowledge that she even wanted to kiss him was making his heart pound erratically. And then she spoke as if they would keep kissing, that she'd kiss him sometime in the future, maybe when he was not even expecting it…and it was all enough to make him faint, honestly.
"But I haven't kissed anyone either." He finally blurted out.
She looked surprised at that. "Oh. I thought…at camp, you spent so much time with Rose…"
"She's Ten's age!"
"Yeah, but—"
"She likes him, not me!"
"Oh." She smiled. "Okay then."
He smiled back, a little nervously. "Yeah."
He knew that his hold on her face was becoming awkward and prolonged, and that she was probably feeling that too, but he didn't want to move away because if he did that he might never lean forward again. It had taken him three years to get to that point, after all.
"Well, if you do it wrong, it's not like I'll even know." She said matter-of-factly. Those words made his stomach flutter strangely and he realized he was still beaming like a dopey idiot.
"I guess that's true." He agreed. His heart was beating way too rapidly. He was definitely having an arrhythmia.
She looked around a little awkwardly. "So…" she pressed, leaning further into his touch. It took him a moment to realize she was waiting for him to press his lips to hers.
"Oh. Oh! Yeah, um, just..." Her eyes fluttered shut easily. He could see on every line of her how much she trusted him in that moment, and it was heart warming. He licked his lips and took a shuddering breath. "Yeah, that's…yeah." He encouraged her, even though he had no idea what the hell he was doing any more than she did. He drew forth every mental image of on-screen kisses he'd seen, trying to figure out how to turn his head—but then he realized how stupid he was being. This was Clara. It wasn't about doing it right. It was just about…well, it was about the fact that he wanted to kiss her. It was simple like she'd said all along. And so he tightened his hold on her face gently and pulled her closer, leaning forward and turning his head slightly to the right, and then he pressed his lips to hers. He didn't think to close his eyes until he'd pulled back, his heart pounding so hard in his chest he thought he might be sick.
"Hmm." Clara said, her lips so close to his they practically brushed again. "Maybe once more, like you want to, not like I'm holding a gun to your head."
His nervous laughter escaped from him, drawing out similar giggles in Clara. It was then, with her eyes lighting up with humor, that he found what he'd been looking for inside of himself. And then he kissed her again, this time slowly and deliberately, taking the time to notice all he hadn't before: the taste of her chapstick, the smell of her shampoo, the lovesick feeling of having her that close to him. He kissed her like that a couple more times, sweet and slow and completely to the point, and he was about to pull back and tell her how much he actually liked it—until he heard his door open.
"Doctor!"
Clara's eyes drifted shut once more, but this time with chagrin.
"Oh bollocks." She whispered softly.
The Doctor dropped his now-sweaty hands from Clara's face, sliding back from her like he'd been doing something to be ashamed of, even though he hadn't felt like he was. He was sure Ten had been doing far more with girls by this age. His Great Aunt Tara was peering at him with a frown, her eyes flitting between him and Clara.
"Clara, your mum called. She wants you home." Tara said.
The Doctor wasn't sure if that was true or a lie, but either way, Clara rose from his bed. She touched his shoulder gently, squaring her small shoulders against Tara's reproachful glare at her back.
"I'll see you tomorrow." She told him.
Despite the adult present, he grinned like the lovesick adolescent he was.
"Tomorrow." He agreed.
Tara watched Clara leave the room, her lips pressed into a line. The Doctor expected some sort of chiding from her, even though he wasn't sure what he'd done wrong, but she didn't say anything. She merely sighed.
"It really doesn't seem that long ago that you were my little thief." She told him. "Now you're stealing things much more serious than books or biscuits, and that girl's got a thieving heart to rival yours."
She turned and walked from the room, yelling something to his brother about picking up his books from the stairs. The Doctor thought all night about her words. It was true he was a thief when he was little, right before he was orphaned. Every time they'd come over to their Aunt Tara's he and his brother would nick things, mostly things they couldn't get at home like books or sweets, but he hadn't stolen anything in a long time. At least not anything tangible.
It all seemed too well-timed to be a coincidence to him, but the next morning, Tara handed him his acceptance letter from the prestigious boarding school he'd been forced to apply to months before. Dear John Smith XI, We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance to our year-long program, beginning this fall…
He didn't want it. He didn't want any of it. He didn't want the starched uniforms they had to wear, the heavy curriculum, or the posh company. More than anything, he didn't want to move to Cardiff, away from everyone he cared about. From Tara, from Clara, from his brother Ten. He didn't want to live somewhere where everyone would call him John no matter what he said. He didn't want it, but that didn't matter, because he was still a child.
"I always take you where you need to go," Tara reminded him softly, her blue eyes wide and sincere. "This is best for you."
He disagreed. "You aren't making Ten go. You aren't making him go somewhere where everyone will call him John Smith X and make him wear rubbish uniforms. You aren't making him leave all his friends."
He hated his father and he hated his name and he hated that place.
Tara's motivations soon became clear with her next words. "You aren't leaving friends, Doctor. You're leaving Clara. Ten's got Donna, Rose, Martha, and Mickey…you just see that one girl. It's been like that since you moved in with me, all those years ago. It isn't healthy. You need to figure out who you are as just you. You need to grow."
For the first time since she'd opened her doors and her heart to him, he resented her.
"You're just afraid I'll be like him." He told Tara coldly. She didn't have to ask who he was talking about. It was clear to both of them.
In the end, he was a coward. He was too afraid to tell Clara goodbye, so he didn't. A year was too vast for him to comprehend at that age. It seemed an impossible distance that they could never cross.
He cried on the train. He knew Tara loved him more than anyone else in the world, and that she only did things because she wanted the best for him, but at the time it felt like a personal attack. Like a punishment for being the eleventh John Smith instead of the tenth. He couldn't be his brother. He wouldn't be. And he would never, ever grow up. Not like she wanted him to.
He learned more than he ever could have expected and made lasting friendships with Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, but his heart was never far from London. It was never far from that girl because it had already intertwined with her heart, and he feared on some damp, chilling nights that it never would be untangled from hers, and that he'd be miserable forever because of it. Teenage heartbreak was always tinged with an unnecessary sense of fatality.
He wrote a letter to her, six months in. It was brief and cheery and empty, talking of lab experiments and strange insects and the weather. At the end, he added a P.S. in the shorthand they created together as children that didn't make much sense now. He told her he missed her mother's soufflés, but what he really meant was that he missed her.
He never got a letter back, whether from fault of the school's post system or perhaps Clara's own indifference towards him he wasn't sure. In time, he came to the realization that he'd lost her. It was a jarring moment for him, because until that realization, he hadn't thought losing her was possible. She'd just always been there and he'd selfishly assumed she always would be. The Doctor and Clara until suddenly it wasn't. It was just the Doctor.
Amy and Rory kept him uplifted, and when it came time to return home and say goodbye to them, he found that he almost didn't want to.
It was strange to be that age, anyway. Everything was forever and temporary all at once.
Tara and Ten greeted him at the station, smiles stretched across faces that seemed different somehow. Tara's eyes were perhaps a bit linier and Ten's face was longer, thinner—like he'd aged considerably in his brother's absence.
Tara hugged him warmly and Ten clapped his shoulder, taking his bags from him. The Doctor spent the entire ride back telling the all about Amy and Rory and River and Craig and Sophie and how much fun they'd all gotten into. Tara was so happy it made the Doctor happy too. Deep down, all he wanted was to make her proud.
Things were different when they arrived home. Tara's smile faded into a concerned and determined stare while Ten looked almost gloomily out the window. The Doctor suddenly knew instinctively that something had happened while he was away. His stomach grew heavy and his heart grew tired.
"What?" He asked Tara. When she didn't respond, he turned to his brother. "What's happened?"
Sitting in the parked car, Ten met his brother's eyes.
"Clara's mum died. Ellie died."
He'd never before felt like he was moving while sitting stationary, but he felt it now. He got the brief impression that he was spinning and his heart felt like it was being pulled, hard, by two greedy hands ripping the muscle apart.
"No." He said, and it was so childish and stupid that he immediately corrected himself. "I mean. How? Why? When?"
He'd just seen Ellie the day before he left. He was sitting in the family room with her and Clara, watching some baking show and laughing about something or another, he couldn't remember now…but it had been just yesterday. She'd been fine. She wasn't—how could someone be months away from dying and not even show it? But then he remembered his own parents and realized that was a foolish thought.
"Leukemia. She died two weeks after being diagnosed. There was nothing to be done." Tara told him.
The Doctor looked to Tara. "But she seemed fine!"
"I know, Thief." Tara said softly. The Doctor realized once more how grave of a situation it was when she used his old pet name.
"When?" He demanded again.
"About six months after you left."
He couldn't look at them. So many things were wrong. He'd written to both of them weekly and no one had once mentioned this. And he'd told Clara he missed her mother's soufflés, probably right after she had died. It's no wonder she hadn't written him back. He felt nauseated.
"And Clara?" He asked them, his eyes still far from them and his voice shaking slightly.
"She's fine." His brother assured him. "Actually, every time I see her, she looks perfectly normal. She didn't even cry at the funeral."
His hand was pulling on the handle before he even decided to flee the car. He suddenly couldn't stand to be in there with them.
"That is not fine." He spat at his brother, and then he slammed the door behind him and retreated to the garage.
Being in there was not comforting, because they'd destroyed it. This was where he and Clara spent most every day after school during the cold months. They had their own little card table with two chairs and an old rug and a CD player. All of it was gone, leaving a bare, empty spot in its place. He sat down on the concrete floor, feeling the coldness of it seep through his trousers. And then he pressed his face into his hands.
"Christ," he whispered.
He ignored Tara when she asked him where he was going later that day. He knocked on Clara's front door for at least three minutes before her father opened it, dim eyed and beaten down.
"Is Clara home?" He asked impatiently.
Dave shook his head. He offered no other information, shutting the door quickly like the human contact was painful for him. The Doctor didn't know what to do or say, because the Oswalds had been the picture-perfect family. Everyone loved each other unconditionally and there was never a shortage of warmth in their household. He used to go over there whenever he felt hopeless simply because the love made him feel like things were okay. He felt like he'd just lost a bit of his own childhood, as selfish as he knew it was. Clara had been extremely close with her mother her entire life. Where was she? More importantly, where had he been while she was suffering?
He wasn't sure where he'd been, but he did know where he'd be. He'd be right on that stoop until Clara got home.
The sun went and the moon arrived and still no Clara. The Doctor called her phone, but she'd changed her number sometime during his absence. Tara called for him to come inside, but he didn't listen. He didn't know why he felt so angry. He just knew that he did, and that maybe it was aimed at the world, but he'd punish Tara for it anyway. Because she was the one who loved him unconditionally, and teenagers were always going to use that to their advantage.
He saw the dim pinpoints of light before he heard her. First he smelled the smoke, then he saw her bring the cigarette up to those same lips he'd thought about for so many years, and then he watched her exhale the smoke into a girl's mouth that she'd hated only a year prior. The sight made his heart curl with pain, that smoke wrapping around and around it until it was blackened and smoked.
The other girl had already begun her walk home when Clara got near enough to spot the Doctor sitting in the dark. Still in his uniform. Still angry.
He had no right. He knew he didn't, but he rose to his feet and pulled the lit cigarette from her slim fingers anyway. In the dark light she was small and tough, with long smudges of eyeliner underneath her eyes and lips too red to have been painted with any lipstick she owned. It was a heavy mask too old for her. He could still see her clean face behind his eyelids each time he blinked.
He didn't know what he was doing when he pinched the end of the cigarette between his forefinger and thumb, burning the skin as he extinguished the flame. That earned him the slightest flash of emotion in Clara's eyes, but it was gone quickly.
He'd imagined often what his first words to her might be. He never expected what they actually were.
"What the hell are you doing?"
He dropped it to the ground, stamping it with his shoe for good measure. Then he rubbed his stinging fingers together and seethed.
"You're the one on my stoop. What are you doing?" She shot back, her anger just as quick.
"Don't you even try that on me, Clara. Don't you try your tough girl act. It might have worked on everyone else who knows you, but I'm not an idiot." He snapped.
He didn't know why he was yelling at her. Her mother had died and he was scolding her after abandoning her for a year. He'd thought he wanted to pull her into his arms. He'd imagined what he'd say when he met her. He thought he'd hold her and she'd cry on his shoulder and they'd talk about her mother and maybe she'd tell him that she hadn't been happy at all with him gone, and then she'd kiss him, and he'd kiss her back, and everything would be fixed. But that wasn't life, was it? Life wasn't straightforward like that. Life wasn't a movie.
Her nose twitched and her chin trembled. But after a moment it was gone, so quick that the Doctor could have imagined it.
"Piss off." She told him.
She made to walk past him, but he stepped to his left, blocking her path. When she tried to walk around him, he merely moved in front of her again. It was a game they played as children. But he didn't see any children around anymore.
She reeked of liquor and stale cigarette smoke. They were barely sixteen, and more importantly, they were the Doctor and Clara. They always said they wouldn't be this. They wanted to grow up and save the Pandas and invent ways to make secondary sources of energy more accessible. They wanted to make the world a better place, not let the world make them sadder people. The Doctor had seen that happen to his own parents and Clara'd always said…she'd always said they were different. They were survivors.
"This isn't you, Clara." He pleaded with her. "I know you. I know you. This is wrong. It's just wrong."
She stopped trying to slide past him, her eyebrows rising in the challenging way that normally made him a little frightened.
"You're one to talk." She said, her voice slow and measured.
He furrowed his brow. "What do you mean?"
Her fingers were a light pressure on his shoulder. She touched his uniform, still crisp and sophisticated despite the travel he'd done today.
"This. Your bloody accent. The stationary you sent that sodding letter on!" Her voice grew louder with each addition.
His first instinct in his anger was to argue with her, but all at once, he knew she was right.
"You're right." He told her, and that earned him a look of mild surprise. He began working the tie from his neck, his hands shaking slightly. "None of this is me, that place wasn't me, and it never will be. I didn't want to go. Tara made me, and I didn't want to, Clara. I didn't want to." He flung the tie on the ground, staring at the monogramed logo that landed face up right beside Clara's burnt out cigarette. So those were the two paths they'd ended up on. He just knew that any path away from each other was the wrong one. He was tormented. "Why are you hanging out with Nina Horton? Why are you…being so…not-Clara?"
She looked from him. "What, did you expect that you'd leave and I'd just sit and wait until you returned? That my life would be paused like a bloody movie?"
He didn't speak, because he realized with a rush of shame that yes, he had kind of expected that. Had kind of hoped for it. She saw that in his eyes.
"Well that's rubbish. I don't wait for anyone. I come and find them, but when I couldn't find you, I had to find something else."
His voice was sad. "I don't like this." He told her. "I don't like you doing things like this."
"What? Doing things without you?" She accused.
He held her gaze. "No. Doing things to hurt yourself."
She didn't say anything. Perhaps it had never occurred to her that that's what she was doing. He saw her posture droop slightly, like she had just grown exhausted.
"I was lonely. You weren't here." She admitted. "It felt good to do things I wouldn't normally do. It felt like I wasn't myself anymore. And I didn't want to be me."
He noticed that she was using the past tense, which made him sincerely hope that that meant she wasn't going to do this anymore.
"Tara sent me away because she said we were too dependent on each other. Maybe she was right." He muttered.
Her anger flared. "The world's shit and Tara's a cow. Why does it have to be unhealthy to be dependent on someone? Who decided that we all had to do it alone? Who woke up one morning and said 'hey, the world's a hard and dark place…let's insist that everyone handle it alone to be considered healthy!'. I don't buy it. I don't buy it! I don't understand anything about the world and I don't understand why things happen like they do. I lie awake all night and think about it but there's no sense to it. Someone could spend their entire life being good to other people, and taking care of them, and loving them with all their heart, and then suddenly be dead and it doesn't make sense. And meanwhile there are all these people out here, these bad, terrible people, who hurt other people just for fun, and they're fine, they live to be in their nineties, and no one questions it. My dad's wrong. There is no God, and even if there was, I wouldn't speak to Him. Look, all I know is that, when we were together, things were better. What's wrong with relying on someone? What's wrong with counting on them, with needing them, with missing them? What's wrong with…with…"
She stopped abruptly. The Doctor listened to her words and understood her dual meaning. He understood it all, probably more than she wanted him to. And so he didn't say the words that she expected ("Because if you rely on someone that much, when they leave you—and they always will somehow—you won't be able to do it on your own. You'll end up doing crazy things to feel okay again."). He merely reached for her hand, pleasantly surprised when she didn't yank it away.
"There's nothing wrong with it." He said instead, because he meant those words deeply. "People who think there is are only scared because they've been hurt." He let himself say the words he couldn't write. "I missed you, Clara. You're my best friend."
Her small smile was gorgeous in the pale moonlight.
"I know." She told him softly. She swung their joined hands a little, like they used to do as kids, and he wanted to grab her and kiss her until she understood just how much he meant what he said. He'd missed her every day. She let their arms fall still and then looked up at him, meeting his eyes. "My mum died."
She said the words like she was admitting some huge fault of her own, like he'd run away the minute she admitted it. He swallowed dryly, the words making his heart ache again. He gave her hand a hesitant squeeze.
"Ten told me today." He admitted. He used his other hand to pat his pockets, feeling the battered pack of cards he'd put in there before heading over here. When he thought he'd find the same Clara he'd left behind. He was starting to, anyway. "My mum's dead too. Do you want to play a game of Sharks Have Teeth?"
It hadn't been what she was expecting, that much was for certain. She stared at him almost with indignation for a moment, her features drawing down with anger and hurt, but then all at one she began laughing. The first laugh was shaky and uncertain, but soon it was hearty and real, and so very Clara. She laughed and laughed and laughed—until the Doctor realized suddenly that she was crying.
He still smelled like that boarding school, all crisp and overbearing, and she still smelled of smoky defeat, but he gathered her into his arms and swore he caught a whiff of the smell of home.
"She always said that loving someone meant you went and found them every time, but you both went away, and I couldn't find you." She admitted to him, her voice high and drawn tight. He'd never seen her cry before. He wished he never had and never would again. Her body shook against his as she cried. "I couldn't find anyone, and it was so cold this winter, and my dad kept telling me to find God, but my mum wasn't with Him and I wasn't with you and I can't make a soufflé without her. They burn every time."
He was bony and nerdy and socially awkward with a chin too long for anyone's face, but he was also her best friend. He knew that. And so he did what best friends did. He helped her carry her pain. He scooped up half of it and placed it into his own heart and he cried too.
"If ever you can't find me, it doesn't matter, because I'll come find you." He promised her. It was a rash promise made from his sixteen-year-old mouth in the middle of an emotionally-wrought conversation, but he meant it. He meant it with all of him and knew he'd always honor that, even if one day she decided she didn't want to be found ever again.
"I don't even know who I am." She admitted to him.
It was important to him that she understood this.
"You're beautiful." He responded immediately. "In every way a person can be. And you can lean on me, because I won't let you down."
"Not like she did?" She asked him. He understood her blind anger at the world, at her mother, at him, at herself. He accepted it like he accepted every part of her.
"Not like that." He swore. "At least, not anytime soon." He leaned back from her slightly, meeting her eyes as he nudged the cigarette with his toe. "But you have to promise not to let me down, too."
She huffed, her tear-stained cheeks shining in the dim light from the moon.
"That's my first one." She admitted. "The smoke reminds me of my burnt soufflés. I won't be doing it again."
He chuckled softly at that. He reached down and pulled a piece of hair off her wet cheek, replacing it behind her ear. When his fingertips brushed her cheek, he found his heart picking up pace. He couldn't imagine a day when it wouldn't do that around her.
"Would it be all right if I kissed you? I noticed you leaning more towards the Nina side of life, but—"
She cut him off with a soft kiss, her cheeks damp against his. Her fingers buried into his hair, her other hand finding the pack of cards held loosely in the hand still at his side. She wrapped her small hand around that one as best she could.
"You're my more than anything." She told him when she pulled back. It was a common refrain between them. It'd started when they were kids and they heard a mushy couple saying "I love you more than anything". They'd sneered and joked with each other all day, mocking the lovey-dovey tone and fluttering their eyelashes at each other. "I love you more than aaaanythinggggg!" "You ARE my more than anything, sugarplum!" They'd end up on the grass in fits of laughter, their ribs sore from giggling so much. But somehow along the way they'd become that couple, and the Doctor wasn't sure when it had happened.
He smiled, his lips twitching against the long-time instinct to laugh at those words. "I know."
She pulled the pack of cards from his hand.
"I'm going first, and if I see you cheat, I'm going to punch you."
"You're the boss."
She glanced up at him with a surprised smile, her expression lighter than it'd been since he saw her again. He reached up and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away some of the dark makeup underneath her eyes.
"Clara, you look like you've been channeling fashion inspiration from a raccoon." He admitted.
"Better than from a rich snob." She shot back, looking him over.
"Is it?" He asked skeptically, drawing a reluctant laugh from her lips.
They sat down in the dewy grass. She was quiet as he dealt their cards.
"I missed you too." She told him finally.
He looked up. He ran his fingernail nervously along the edge of the queen of hearts.
"I'm so sorry about your mum." He replied.
She nodded, glancing down at her hands. She fiddled with her mother's wedding band, that he now noticed was on the middle finger of her right hand.
"I'm not ever going to have kids." She whispered sometime later, her voice thick with pain. "I won't ever make someone need me that much."
The Doctor thought briefly to his own parents, but the thoughts were bitter and stinging.
"Me neither." He told her. He held her cards out to her. "No peeking."
She took the cards from him and cradled them in her hands carefully. She glanced up at him, not surprised to find him already looking at her.
"Probably for the best. Dear God, that chin. Can you picture it on a newborn?"
He glared at her until the corners of her lips twitched, and then they were laughing again, their cards falling from their hands as they rolled in the grass.
Clara stared up at the sky, her cards surrounding her head almost like a pre-arranged halo. The Doctor took the moment to memorize her cards, in case they resumed their game.
"I haven't laughed in a long time."
The Doctor poked her ribs, knowing it was her most ticklish place. She squirmed away and smacked at his hand.
"I'll fix that in no time." He assured her.
She sighed. "I know you will." Then she sat up and punched him hard in the arm. "And I told you not to cheat, don't think I didn't see you looking at my cards. New ones." She held out her hand and waited as he shuffled and dealt out new ones, pouting just a little bit.
"Will your dad move you back out to Blackpool?" The Doctor asked her midway through the game. He was kicking her ass but he wasn't about to go easy on her. Clara Oswald hated pity more than losing.
Clara shrugged. "I think he'll probably end up going back. I'm not going with him, though."
That knowledge made him warm. He couldn't stop smiling, even when Clara told him it was rude to grin smugly while winning at a card game.
"I'm not smiling because I'm winning. I'm smiling because you're not leaving." He told her.
She smiled too. "I like the sound of that. Not leaving. Let's say it again."
He knocked his shoulder into hers and opened his arms to the heavens as he sang out—in his best interpretation of opera singing—NOT LEAVING! NOT LEAVING! He knew he'd get scolded by Tara for it in the morning.
Clara licked the back of the five of clubs, sticking it to his forehead. She grimaced when he stuck the king of hearts onto hers, accepting her fate.
"I win!" He cheered.
Suddenly, her gaze was more devoted than it had ever been. She looked at him like she loved him—fully, completely. He hadn't been loved like that very much in his life. He was so far into that gaze that it took him longer than it should have to realize what just happened. He gaped at her, his own loving gaze shifting to one of outrage.
"Did you…did you let me win?!" He demanded. "That's so against our rules! You know it's against the rules! You're the one who wrote it in!"
She reached up and pried the king of hearts off her forehead, relicking it and removing the card on his head to stick that one in its place. Then she pressed her hands against her knees and rose.
"That card's yours." She said simply. He watched her kick off her heeled boots and walk into her house without another word.
It took him until morning to realize what she'd meant.
